Stillwater Creek (28 page)

Horrible Roger had smeared red jam on Zidra's seat during the lunch recess. It wasn't until all the kids started laughing when she got up to go home that she'd realised something was wrong. Even then she mightn't have known if little Lyn Cross hadn't told her. The humiliation! How she'd blushed at the discovery and that had made horrid Roger laugh all the more. ‘Started your periods, have you?' he'd said. While having no idea what he meant, she knew it couldn't be nice. And there was no way she could wash the jam off either, with the toilet block being out of bounds once school was out. If Lorna were here she would have sorted out Roger. Now there was nothing for it but to take the long way home, creeping along the back lanes so that no one would see her with the red sticky mess on her tunic.

She wasn't even sure that she wanted to go home today. This afternoon Mama was giving two lessons, one after the other, and wouldn't have any time to spare, no time even to listen to the story about Roger. Then there'd be all that thumping on the piano, that endless ping-ping-ping-ping-ping up the keys, and ping-ping-ping-ping down again. Five-finger exercises were so good to develop coordination of the hands, Mama
said, but she didn't think of her daughter's ears. If Zidra didn't get home until after the piano lessons were over, she wouldn't even notice.

Zidra hung around for a while in the school playground, until Miss Neville came out to tell her to go home. Soon after, she heard the sound of Mrs Bates banging out scales on the school piano. Pianos everywhere; she'd rather hear the birds any day. That's what Lorna had taught her, how to listen to the bush. How to hear the music that was all around you, music that you just blocked out unless someone told you about it. If only Lorna were here; she'd make Zidra's jammy skirt an excuse for an adventure and not a retreat.

She trudged along the back lanes leading down to the lagoon. Once or twice she thought she heard a sound behind her and turned to look, suspecting Roger might be tracking her, but there wasn't a soul about. No one to see her, no one to taunt her; she'd be able to sponge the stuff off her skirt in peace.

She hid her school-case in the spot near the bridge that she and Lorna had made their own, and took off her shoes and socks. Avoiding the few sickle-shaped jelly fish beached on the edge of the lagoon, she waded into the water. A wet handkerchief would surely do the trick. The sticky mess on the back of her skirt came off easily; maybe there was still a bit of a mark but that was probably just from the lagoon water.

Through the cool clear water, her feet were visible and appeared bleached to a stark white. Blue veins stood up prominently on the top and the edges of her toes were a ruby red. Distorted by the water, her legs appeared shorter than in reality. Wriggling her toes, she dislodged some of the brown slime covering the sandy bottom. This swirled around and sank again, some of the particles settling on her feet. She felt more
alone than ever before. If she stood here long enough, her feet would become invisible. She might become invisible too, or turn into a discarded log like that old tree trunk lying at the water's edge that Lorna claimed had been left there by some long-ago flood.

Eventually she stepped out of the water and dried her feet on her tunic skirt. It was too early to go home; her mother would still be giving lessons. Instead she'd walk along the edge of the lagoon; maybe as far as that spot where Stillwater Creek trickled into the lagoon and Jim and Andy had baked those potatoes in the days before the total fire ban.

After the last customer had left Cadwallader's Quality Meats, George and The Boy began the evening liturgy. The Boy had performed his ceremonial duties with greater efficiency if not devotion since his pay rise several months ago. Today he was even more zealous than usual and by ten past the hour George was ready to go home. Normally he'd return by the back lanes but today he decided to leave by the front door.

It was then that he saw it. Someone had stuck a label on the flank of the painted cow adorning the top of the shopfront window. Peering up, he could just discern the writing on the label. Batty Beattie. If he didn't view the painting as a portrait of his wife he might have smiled at this but as it was he felt only annoyance. The cow was much too young for this sobriquet.

He unlocked the shopfront again and went out the back to fetch a stepladder and a pail of water. Standing on the stepladder, he could just reach the label. It peeled away easily, but then he discovered that it had been attached with a couple of pieces of chewing gum that were unwilling to part company with the cow. Although he tried sponging the gum with water,
it wouldn't come off. Something must be able to remove it but he couldn't think what. Not methylated spirits because that might remove the paint. Brown paper and a hot iron, he was almost certain now he'd heard Eileen recommend this. If she hadn't disliked the cow so much, he might once have asked her to do it. Perhaps late at night; she didn't like making an exhibition of herself. But it was impossible to ask such a thing of her now. They were barely speaking to one another, although the exchanges they did have were of exquisite politeness, and he'd tried so hard lately to see things from her perspective. These days she refused to talk about the scholarship at all. If he raised the matter, she stonewalled him, and when he tried to explain that he understood what she was going through she'd simply laughed in his face. How can you understand, George, you are a man, she'd said. As if being a man was something to be ashamed of.

After descending the stepladder, he inspected the painting from pavement level. The two dabs of gum didn't look so bad from this distance. A couple more spots weren't all that noticeable on a Friesian cow. It would have been worse if he'd commissioned a painting of a Jersey all those years ago. Maybe he'd leave well alone for the moment. Better than having to discuss the matter with Eileen. It was possible anyway that the paint might come off with the gum. It wouldn't do for the cow to have holes in its flank.

He felt upset nonetheless. The cow had been without blemish and the comfort of it lay in its perfection. So disgruntled did he feel that he decided to stroll down to the lagoon before going home. The river was always soothing and maybe a quick look at his boat would calm him. Although it hadn't calmed him a few weeks ago when he'd found the dinghy was lying the wrong way up and the bailing can was missing. He'd put a padlock on the boatshed doors after that.

You never used to have to worry about locking things away. Nothing seemed quite the same as it used to. Nothing was safe any more. Not his boat, not even his cow that was in full view of half the town. After crossing the bridge over the lagoon, he headed along the track to the boathouse. The bush was drier than ever. No longer sparkling in the light, the leaves of the scrubby trees drooped sadly, quite still, and the sparse undergrowth was a uniform drab olive. The path was baked hard, and littered with the detritus of the bush; the twigs, nuts and dead leaves that took so long to decay but that would burst into flames with just one match.

After several hundred yards, out of sight of the settlement, he stopped and stared at the lagoon. A flock of pelicans floated at the water's edge. Most held their heads high, necks fully extended. Three or four had turned their heads a full one hundred and eighty degrees and buried their beaks into their feathers. That's what he'd like to do. Bury his head in something soft and cocooning that would obliterate his unhappiness.

Beyond the pelicans, on the western side of the lagoon, folds of land fuzzed with bush dropped down to the path just above the waterline. Further back, the bush had been cleared for farming. Behind this, the tall straight trunks of a forest of eucalyptus trees looked like nascent telegraph poles topped with broccoli heads.

At this moment his eye was caught by a movement near the water's edge, not far from where Stillwater Creek entered the lagoon. It was a girl sprinting towards the town. After a moment he recognised her. The Latvian girl Zidra was running so fast it wouldn't surprise him if she turned into a bit of an athlete, like Jim and Andy. Not so long ago she would have had Lorna with her. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes to six. Perhaps she was late for tea as he might be too if he didn't get
a move on. The boys were at cricket practice and he'd promised Eileen to be home in time to feed the chooks in Jim's place. He was going to have to hurry. An angry Eileen on top of everything else would be too much. Tea at six o'clock sharp, that was her rule.

He turned back the way he had come and so he missed seeing Bill Bates walking, ten minutes later, along the same path as Zidra.

Ilona puzzled over her daughter's behaviour. For some days she'd seemed out of sorts. Tired and irritable, and on three nights in a row had woken up screaming.

‘What's the matter, darling?' she said, holding her daughter close after the most recent nightmare.

‘Nothing's the matter.' But Zidra's body was shaking and Ilona could feel her heart beating wildly inside her rib cage like a bird struggling to find a way out.

‘What did you dream of?' Ilona pushed Zidra's hair off her face and gently stroked her flushed cheek.

‘I've forgotten.'

‘Was it Lorna again?'

‘No.'

‘Was it something that happened at school?'

‘No.'

‘Not Roger?'

‘No.'

Ilona lay down next to Zidra and held her tightly until at last the sound of steady breathing indicated she was asleep. It must be Lorna, or rather Lorna's absence, that was causing such a change in her daughter. Extricating herself from Zidra's
embrace, Ilona tucked in the sheet around her and sat on the edge of the bed to watch the regular rise and fall of her chest.

Too many nightmares, too many worries. Zidra had lost friends before; Zidra had left behind friends before. Not in Bradford, for she was too young to have had friends there, but in Homebush. There must be more to her unhappiness than simply missing Lorna. Anyway, Lorna was not her only friend. There was Jim. Admittedly a year or two older, though that was a good thing for it surely made him more responsible. If there were something wrong at school Jim would know what to do about it. Yet he was only a boy and had other friends, boys who occupied most of his spare time. It was no good asking him if he knew what was wrong, just as it was no good asking Zidra if she knew what was wrong. There was nothing else to do but to arrange to see Miss Neville, to find out if Zidra was being bullied at school.

Ilona tiptoed out of Zidra's bedroom and, heaving a great sigh, sat in an armchair in the living room. She did not want to see Miss Neville. The school mistress alternated between cordiality and animosity for reasons that Ilona could not fathom.

However the next day, after all the children had left school, she knocked on the door of Miss Neville's office. Looking up from some papers as Ilona entered the room, the teacher gestured to a hard wooden chair next to the desk. Her expression was unwelcoming, her demeanor slightly dishevelled.

‘I'm here about Zidra.' Ilona nervously twisted her fingers together.

‘Of course you are,' Miss Neville said rather abruptly.

Just then Ilona heard a trill of scales from the adjacent schoolroom. Two octaves perfectly played by two hands. ‘How lovely to hear Cherry practising!' she exclaimed.

Miss Neville looked at her coldly. ‘Mrs Bates practises every day,' she said firmly, as if Ilona had made an accusation.

Mrs Bates to you but Cherry to me, Ilona reflected. ‘I suppose that you know I am teaching Cherry. She is making good progress. It was so kind of you to allow her to practise here. I know she does not have much free time at the hotel where there is not even a piano.'

‘I am perfectly aware of that,' said Miss Neville, ‘and that is why I invited her here. It was almost entirely my own idea.'

‘An inspired idea,' said Ilona, experiencing a sudden flash of intuition about the cause of Miss Neville's prickliness. She was jealous of Ilona's friendship with Cherry, that was it. ‘Quite inspired.' She glanced beyond Miss Neville. Outside the sky was a blazing blue, too blue. ‘But of course it is Zidra about whom I wish to talk to you.'

‘As you said. What do you want to discuss? Your daughter's rapidly catching up with her arithmetic now she's finally mastered the multiplication tables.'

‘They are a little like the scales then. Practice makes perfect. But it is not my daughter's academic progress that is causing me anxiety, Miss Neville. Rather it is the suspicion that I harbour that she may be being picked on.'

‘Picked on?'

‘Have you noticed any change in her behaviour since Lorna left?'

‘She's become quieter. More introverted perhaps,' said Miss Neville. Next door Cherry moved on to a scale in another key. ‘Aboriginal children come and go from school. The other children are used to it, but maybe Zidra isn't. It's a great shame about Lorna being taken away from her family. Such a bright girl but maybe the schooling's good in Gudgiegalah. I have to
say that I haven't noticed any other change in Zidra apart from a general quietness.'

‘She's waking up with nightmares. Screaming, night after night.'

‘I'm so sorry to hear that. Perhaps it's because of your past.'

‘But the screaming is only recent. That's why I'm here. To ask if you think someone might be humiliating her.'

‘No. I don't allow any humiliation at my school.'

So firmly did she say this that Ilona almost believed her. ‘I am delighted to hear it.' But she was not, for she would feel better if she could find the cause of Zidra's unhappiness.

There was another brief pause. The piano in the next room stopped. Then there was a clicking of high heels on polished wood and into the room swept Cherry, wearing a sleeveless floral dress with a full skirt, and lips painted an even brighter red than usual.

‘Mrs Bates!' Miss Neville raised her hand. ‘I am in a meeting with Mrs Talivaldis.'

‘So sorry, darl,' Cherry said breezily. ‘Hello, Ilona, didn't expect to see you here, but you will have heard me practising.' She laughed. ‘What do you reckon? Any signs of improvement?'

‘Not a single mistake.'

‘Must get back to it, then. I get so little time. Where's Zidra?'

‘Out in the schoolyard.'

‘Oh? I might go and say hello. Not good to have her hanging about on her own feeling lonely. Ta ta, Miss Neville!' Out of the room she clattered and a moment later her voice could be heard summoning Zidra.

‘Perhaps we have finished now,' Ilona said after Cherry had shut the door behind her. ‘I am reassured to know that you have not observed any bullying of my daughter.'

‘It's not that I haven't observed it,' said Miss Neville. ‘It's that it doesn't exist in my school.'

Ilona felt tears of frustration filling her eyes and blinked them away. Bullying existed everywhere but this fool of a teacher wouldn't recognise that. ‘I suppose you do not call tipping ink onto the cover of someone's exercise book bullying.'

‘If that happens, the children should report it to me at once.'

‘And if they don't?'

‘What proof would I have that it happened?'

Ilona recognised that the interview was leading nowhere. ‘Thank you for your time,' she said, rising to leave. ‘I shall of course see myself out.'

‘I'll let you out.' Miss Neville's voice was almost kindly now. ‘You mustn't worry too much about Zidra. She'll grow out of whatever's frightening her now and emerge the stronger for it.'

‘I do hope so,' said Ilona, stepping out into the harsh sunlight, but she didn't feel reassured.

‘I'll watch out for her,' Miss Neville said, as Ilona was about to call Zidra. ‘It's not possible for me to be everywhere at once and I may have missed something.'

Ilona glanced quickly at the school mistress, who was staring at Cherry and Zidra. They were sitting side-by-side on a bench in the uneven shade of a gum tree. As soon as Zidra saw them, she stood up and ran to her mother. Ilona embraced her and waved at Cherry, who did not seem to be in a hurry to resume her practising, for she stayed seated where she was.

Ilona took her daughter's clammy hand in her own and together they descended the hill in silence. Maybe she would talk to Peter about Zidra next time they met up. Some time in the next week or two, he'd suggested at the dance.

Then it hit her, what she feared most of all: that Zidra might be developing Oleksii's tendency to melancholia.

Cherry watched Ilona and Zidra as they walked slowly down the hill. Beads of sweat trickled down her back and the under-arms of her dress were saturated. Greatly agitated, she ran through the conversation she'd overheard between Miss Neville and Ilona. Zidra waking screaming at night! Zidra quiet in the daytime! It didn't bear thinking about.

Once she'd suspected that Zidra might not be with Ilona in Miss Neville's office, she'd felt even more troubled. After Miss Neville's denial of bullying at her school – and Cherry had absolutely no doubt that this sort of behaviour would be stamped on – she'd burst into the office where they were talking. She was right: Zidra wasn't there. Although Miss Neville was clearly irritated at the interruption, Cherry hadn't cared. Rushing into the playground, she'd been terrified that the girl might have gone. But there she was, sitting on one of the swings that were now in the full sun. Apparently oblivious of the heat, she seemed so preoccupied, so dejected-looking that she wasn't even pushing herself on the swing. That was when Cherry had called out; the child had jumped off the swing and come to her. Together they'd walked across the burning hot bitumen and into the dappled shade of the gum tree, and sat down on the timber bench. There were dark shadows under Zidra's eyes and she looked tired. But worse than that, her usually mobile face was completely lacking in expression, so that it seemed almost like some mask that she had put on. Cherry wanted to ask outright if Bill had been pestering her but couldn't think of how to phrase this. Bill had become obsessed by the girl, this was her suspicion. This would also explain his generosity in taking the children out on the launch that day. Not to mention his regular presence on the hotel verandah each afternoon when school came out. Hers too; she never let him go out there alone these days.

‘You look a bit tired,' Cherry said to Zidra, as they sat together in the school playground. Lightly touching the girl's hand, she was relieved that anxiety did not feed into her voice. ‘Anything bothering you?'

‘No,' Zidra said faintly. A quick glance up at Cherry and then away again, as if embarrassed to meet her eye.

Knowing that she was the last person in town Zidra could talk to, Cherry sighed, but there was no way that she could allow Zidra's welfare to be threatened or that of her mother. Bill had to be stopped and she would tell him so this very evening.

Staring at the ocean, she wondered what she might say. The view brought no inspiration. Just off the beach some board surfers were visible, dark dots on the water's surface, but underneath them lay who knew what sort of menace. Sharks or a sudden change of current, anything could happen. Above the distant crash of the surf she could hear seagulls crying and the monotonous chanting of a small child from one of the houses below the school. A child of perhaps five or six, a vulnerable child.

At this moment Cherry's dislike of Bill turned into hatred.

Some moments later, she got up from the seat and went inside. Tip-tap, her high heels went on the floorboards. Tip-tap right past Miss Neville's office and into the schoolroom. She sat down on the stool in front of the piano and ran through a few scales, but it was impossible to concentrate. After a while she banged both hands down hard on the keys – such discordance, such frustration – and rested her elbows on the edge of the piano and her head on her hands.

‘What's the matter?' said Miss Neville, coming into the room and putting an arm around her shoulders.

‘I don't feel well. I'm going to have to give up for today and go home.' Cherry felt unable to tell Miss Neville of her worries, or at least not yet. She was glad of her touch though. It made her feel stronger.

‘It's probably the heat, Cherry. Can you rest when you go home or will the Taskmaster make you carry on working?'

‘Probably.' Cherry sighed. The bar would be filling up now as the men came in after work and she didn't feel like making the good-humoured banter that everyone expected of her. Not until later that evening, after closing time, would she be able to talk to Bill.

However by closing time that evening Bill was drunk, for the first time in years, and it was obvious he wouldn't be able to comprehend anything she might say. Only a few seconds after he'd stumbled into his bedroom, loud snoring reverberated through the hallway. She'd have to speak to him the next day whenever she could get him alone.